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1745th BLOG POST -->>

The 3rd book of the
year which I picked up to read was again from my favorite publication house,
Jaico, named “The Code” written by one of the prominent authors, Mukta Mahajani.
The book also has the tagline of “Awake the hidden wisdom of your heart”. I
have always hated reading any kind of short stories- either fictional or
non-fictional. It has been on very rare occasions when I have liked a book
consisting of short stories. This book gets into this rare shelf of my book
consisting of my favorite books featuring short stories. Authoress has divided
the book into few prime parts such as Conquering the Ego, Controlling
Over-competitiveness, Mastering Overexpectations, Overcoming Jealousy, Curbing
Overambition, Taming Anger and Beating Procrastination.

Each of these parts have several
stories proving us why we need to follow a certain pattern in our life which
can awaken the hidden wisdom of our heart. After every story, authoress has
shared a paragraph referring it as “THE CODE” which is such a gem that I wanted
to click each one of them and get it framed. Before this, it has only been in the
case of Robin Sharma’s books and few other couple of authors where I have found
every chapter or paragraph as gem. The questions on which authoress wants us to
contemplate has been shared after each chapter which is such an introspective
session that you would find it very hard to answer those questions and the
moment you find an answer for that, you would understand the power of the story
and “the code” shared just before those questions.

The book provides wonderful
insight on the personal and professional life. What I liked about the stories
shared by the authoress is that all of them are so unique and distinct that you
will never get bored of reading them even in one single sitting. I took 5
stories each day and I must say many of those have got ingrained in my mind and
personality. Another good thing that I need to mention is the quotes that
authoress has mentioned before beginning of every story. How wonderful those
quotes are that I just want to remember all of them and keep them with myself
just like “the codes”. Overall, this is one of the rare books where I liked
almost all the chapters. I would rate this book 4.75* out of 5. Highly
recommended! Mukta, I am fan from today onwards.

1744th BLOG POST -->>

What I like about books from
Jaico is that their focus is so passionate on the self-improvement that even if
you are not liking any of their books still at the end of it you would find
some motivation and inspiration through it. One of their best series is where
they publish short biographies on India’s great personalities for us to know
about them and learn from their experiences and lifestyle. The latest such book
I ended up reading recently from Jaico is on the life of Mr. Kumar Mangalam
Birla written by Drimi Chaudhuri. The book discusses 10 secrets of Success from
the life of Mr. Birla such as Dreaming Big, Aiming High, Learning from the
Past, Building and then Expanding, Evolving with the World, Building a
World-class Team, Keeping our Cool, Being Humble, Keep Learning and Being
Prepared to Succeed.

Drimi has very well discussed the
life of Mr. Birla on how he takes on from his previous generation from Birla
dynasty and rather than falling on his knees, brought more name to the empire
and made it grow like never before. The values and principles that he followed
in his life is discussed which makes evident a lot of things about what such
personalities live by to ensure they succeed at the end of all. It is nicely
discussed how he enabled so many verticals and succeeded in almost all of them.
And even in those he could not perform as well as others, he either ended up
them successfully by merging together with another entity or selling it off
keeping the sanctity of the institution alive.

The book is divided in ten
chapters where each of them talks about one of the secrets of Success that the
author has extracted out of Birla’s life. The decision-making techniques and
transformation by Kumar Mangalam Birla is nicely appreciated in the book- the
one which impressed me is the way he allowed non-vegetarian food in the office
campus which was a strict NO before him as the whole Birla family had been
strictly pure vegetarian. The words by the previous generations as quoted in
the book tells how relevant Birla’s style of working has been that despite
making some big changes in the existing culture, the earlier generation still
adored his workstyle.

1743rd BLOG POST -->>

There are few books you pick for
their title, some for their cover page, some for their synopsis, some for their
overall presentation in case when you are not aware about the Author. This book
that I have just ended up reading has a title quite difficult considering the
average readers in India which most of them won’t understand. What impressed me
to pick this book up was the synopsis which arose quite a curiosity within me
to read about this protagonist- Aarti who is basically from Kashmir and another
girl, Priya, who is there to teach her about life against envy, jealousy, greed
and treachery. The name of the book is “Ballad of a Belle” which basically
means a slow romantic/sentimental song of a beautiful girl/woman (if I go
through the dictionary meaning).

The book is almost 300 pages
published by Addyyan Publication written by the debutant, Rahul Tushar. Talking
about the writing style, I must say from nowhere it can be said about the
author being a debutante with the way he carries the story from one plot to
another without any of them sounding less interesting than the others. With
each page, the story only keeps getting better as the protagonist of the book
finds herself in new relationship and challenges of life with one constant
always- Priya Majoomdar, her friend. The narration is very well handled which
manages reader to stick with the book until its finished. I read this book
while traveling to my office in Mumbai Local and I must say, it really became
hard to keep the book in bag without completing it as the excitement after each
page has always been high to know what happens next.

The characterization is handled
very insightfully as each and every character in the book seems to be having
their own story in the back-end which is also given importance along with the
tale of the protagonist- Aarti. The characters of Aarti, Priya, Sanjive, Dilip,
Arun, Stan and Sheetal remains ingrained in your mind even after hours of
finishing the book which says a lot about the skills of the author. Another great
thing that has been handled is the way author discusses about the Kashmir’s
fact in the initial phase of the book then to the Corporate politics and in the
end about the politics involved in mega-projects handled by big businessmen in
India. All these social phenomenon is very nicely discussed in the book. The
equation of Aarti and Priya is the USP of the book out of many colors and
themes that the Author have tried touching.

Spoilers Ahead…….

Now talking about the drawbacks
of the book: - The cover page is kept quite dark matching with the story of the
book but I would have suggested author to add little more colors to it as the
book is not only about darkness in the protagonist’s life. Secondly, there are
too many deaths in the book which becomes irritating and unjustified after a
point of time. It seems author is doing it only to add more darkness in the
protagonist’s character. Thirdly, the way protagonist gets into each
relationship so easily without giving 2nd thought to her already
hell of a past is quite surprising. Fourth, the ending could have been positive
after all that the protagonist had suffered in her life. Fifth and the last,
the book is priced quite high.

Overall, the book is a quite nice
read and I have big expectations from the author’s 2nd book “The
Sinful Oracle” which has been introduced at the end of this book. I give
“Ballad of a Belle” 3.75* out of 5.

1742nd BLOG POST -->>

Sometimes few people or books or
things change your life at the most unexpected time and your life doesn’t
remain same after that. I was in 12th standard and had no goals or
objectives in life. The only thing I loved was to be on text messages with my
loved ones and spend as much time as possible over it. Similarly, cyber cafes
in India was a new thing then and I loved surfing Internet and exploring new
websites every now and then without even realizing the amount of money, time
and energy I was wasting in it. One day, someone asked me to read this book by
an author called Robin Sharma named “Who Will Cry When You Die?”. I liked the
book’s title like anything as I was having suicidal tendency then and I thought
it is something which I would like to read and know.

The very next day I went to the
railway station’s Wheeler Book Store and asked for this book. I saw that the
book has 100 chapters of a page each which seemed easy to finish. I finished
that book within a night and when I turned its last page, I was a self-realized
and self-evaluated person already. I had got changed for life. I understood how
important this small thing called Life is and how big we can transform it into
with just few basic manipulations in our daily routine. I went to the Railway
station again on the next day and bought “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”- the
most popular book of Robin Sharma. After reading this one, I just couldn’t
sleep for some days in frustration and irritation of how much I have already
ended up wasting myself.

Few days after this, the first
Big Bazaar got opened in our city and I went with my mother for some shopping.
There was a small book section there which luckily had only Robin Sharma’s
books and one copy each of only those books which I had not read till then. I
went to my Mother and requested her if she can buy all of them for me. They
were quite sum of amount considering the middle-class budget. My mother rather
than giving silly excuses of buying and finishing one and then going on for
purchasing the next book, in a hope that at least her only son is thinking of
reading something allowed me to put all the books in the cart. After some days
we went for vacation to our native town which has 36 hours of railway journey.
I carried all these dozen books of Mr. Robin and finished all of them in the
journey and at my native town under open environment in my maternal grandfather’s
farmhouse.

After reading all his books which
were published then in 2010, I was someone with whom even I started enjoying
the company. I had become so positive and wilful. I never said NO to any
challenge post then and did some tasks I believed earlier I would have never
been able to even discuss them leave picking them up and actually executing them.
A boy who was failure at everything started getting better. The one who failed
twice in his Junior College passed his High-school, bachelor’s degree and two
Master’s degree without failing in any subject even once. Even with Blog that I
created myself, I have been able to take it up to a certain level all by myself
just with the belief, confidence, inspiration, energy, motivation and will this
man called Robin Sharma has charged into me.

He is the only writer in whose
work I find every sentence a motivational quote. He just does not know how to
write a normal sentence. Every sentence he writes is like those great carvings
on Taj Mahal. It seems he has taken a lifetime to craft each sentence. Every
sentence is legendary and special and impactful and what not. His words are
epitome of energy and there can be nothing over that which you can point at and
say makes you feel limitless as human being. I had wanted so much to meet him
since I finished completing just his first book which had changed my thought
process for the very 1st time but I knew it was nearly impossible
considering he stays in USA and comes India very rarely. But fortunately, with
an event being arranged by Jaico Publication and Crossword Book Store, I booked
my tickets for this special workshop which was to be conducted by the man
himself on the principles he has discussed in his latest book named “The 5 AM
Club”.

I had gone with so much of
emotions that I am going to experience a person live who has changed my life
that I was uncertain how I would react on seeing him in flesh and blood infront
of me. And how should I express my feeling of seeing him speak in front of me
and providing so much of motivation, inspiration with his great insights on
life. He is a man with such positive vibes that the moment I saw him in front
of me and till now after 9 hours of it, I can still feel the vibrations and
energy within me. And this is not a normal excited feeling which shall go away
after some time. It has 100x impact than what his book has had over me. Now I
am beginning to look at my life ahead with more excitement and energy. The
handshake opportunity that I had with him shall stay with me all my life to
pull me up whenever I fall down in life.

It has been such a Dream Come
True moment for me. 16th February has become an immortal date for me
now which shall be celebrated each day in the memory of this special day which
has surely transformed my life little more the impact of which shall be visible
sooner and stay for the longest possible time. I thank the organizers for
making it possible and also would like to appreciate Tisca Chopra for
conducting such a beautiful session for a short period when she was on stage
with him.

1741st BLOG POST -->>

Today’s the day of Valentine's when
most of us celebrate relationships. There’s always lot of jokes going around
about the pros and cons of being single or committed but as it said, how much
you enjoy your singlehood, you want to end up getting committed once with the
person you find yourself getting compatible with without thinking about what the
future of this relationship would be. In the beginning of every relationship,
it is felt as if this is going to be an endless odyssey which both of us shall
walk together until one of us shall leave our mortal body but the realization dawns
after few weeks when the affair of love gets little old.

No one wants to initially think
about the limitations a love relationship comes with. Everyone believes and
wants to believe that this is an endless saga that shall stay with us in every
moment when we feel weaker at times. It is only when one realizes that most of the weakest
moments of life are those which are caused because of this relationship itself,
isn’t it? Loving someone is inevitable. You do not have control over it.
Expressing your love is one hell of a task which not many can do. But these
days because both the genders are associated since childhood very closely, love
happens and it is expressed after an incidental kiss or physical intimacy already takes
place. Holding each other’s hand itself clarifies both the person that
something has been brewing in our hearts and it is only after some time that
the final claim of love takes place until then it is all unsaid and
adventurous.

A relationship takes away a lot
of energy from you. A relationship needs a lot of involvement. Though everyone
of us feel like it should keep walking in background along with our daily
chores but it does not. It stops the moment you stop giving it the demanding
attention. You have to slog very hard in a relationship. But the coolest part
is that this slogging looks beautiful. No one complains about this until some
day it all comes down to your ego, space, trust issues, time issues, commitment
issues, loyalty issues, self-respect and personal life. It is only when you
start losing the already set world of yours because of this new addition in
your life do you start feeling the burden of this relationship or this relationship as a burden.

Love is beautiful and magic for
sure. But remember, this love is never in the person you love, but within you.
With time, we start considering love to be the person we are romantically involved
in. We should be consciously aware of it in every moment that this love resides
within us. That person has just been the trigger for it to be expressed and
displayed. Otherwise, you are full of love already and you actually do not need
anyone to feel you are in love. But then, God has created the two genders
for some reason, right? So let’s not take away that from the creator. What I
mean to say by saying that do not consider love to be in the person you are
with is to ensure that your sanctity and your consciousness for yourself stays as it is irrespective of howsoever supportive and amicable your partner is.

The whole goof-up begins when you
start expecting and dominating. You are then treated like a dog. Your
self-respect is then tarnished every now and then. You become a slave of
someone’s ego. You have to bear the mood swings of another person and think if
you have done something wrong which made them react so unevenly. This is all
very gross. The relationship if is named “Love”, then it should always display
love. If a person makes mistake, it should be acceptable by them within minutes
after committing. Judging your partner’s patience in relationship will only kill
the feeling slowly. If that is what you are waiting for, continue disrespecting
the relationship by keeping yourself and your mood above the person and
relationship. But if anyway this matters to you then remember, the person with
you is expecting love every moment. Even when there’s disagreement, arguments,
unwanted discussions, just after the end of it, love is still expected
immediately. If it does not come along with all of these, then the relationship
is killing both the people or say, both the people are killing the
relationship.

This Valentine’s Day, promise
yourself that love is meant to be dived into without thinking about yourself,
your breathe, your body, your existence. In that moment of diving, you only
want to dive and swim and experience the new life. Always remember the moment
when you were diving into this. Now that you have experienced and realized that
there’s equal amount of challenges in the relationships as the excitement and
fun, don’t forget the initial feeling you had. But if the relationship is not
adding value to your life and is only giving you stress, then remember, it’s
better staying single on such Valentine’s Day because as said, love is already
there within you, you need not search it in someone who does not have respect
for your existence in their life. This day is for feeling the presence of love
within you first and then in the person you are with and celebrating this
together. This is all I had to say on this beautiful day. Happy Valentine’s Day
to all my readers. Go and express your love like never before. Or else, sit
silently with eyes closed and feel it within you.

P.S:- I apologize to all the readers who have been posting comments and mailing about my disappearance. I hope I shall be more active from now on.